The Conscience Mirrors
by LunacyIsSubjective
Summary: When the TARDIS crashes onto Amy's rose bed, the Ponds figure they're going on another wild adventure. Not this time. The Doctor has been driven mad; truly, dangerously mad, and now he needs Amy, Rory and River to figure out how and why. In the meantime, the Doctor's ramblings reveal fragments of his past, and it breaks their hearts. Set between S6 and S7. Little bit AU.
1. Unpleasant Surprise

When the TARDIS crashed into their garden for what Amy claimed was the thirty- seventh time, (she had a tally next to the kitchen door), the Ponds assumed that it was time for another wild adventure. They'd both had a long day: the media had once again been trying to break into Amy's private life, and Rory had had to deliver the news that a four year old had leukemia. Neither of them could summon the energy to bound outside, but they knew the Doctor would come to them. And though they rolled their eyes at one another, Amy grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair and Rory draining his lukewarm coffee, both were glad of the distraction. It'd be good to escape to their Doctor life.

Both of them waited, arms folded, taking it in turns to glance at the clock. Five minutes passed, which wasn't unusual: often the Doctor had a strange treasure, or indeed passenger, which he'd have trouble pushing out of his mind-boggling ship and onto Amy's long since lost rose-bed. Five minutes was fine. Then five became ten. And ten became fifteen. When the minute hand inched onto sixteen minutes past three, Amy looked at her husband. Her arms had fallen to her sides, and her slight chest was heaving with the rapid pace of her panicked breathing. "Something's wrong." She sprinted from their kitchen, with Rory on her tail, and pounded on the TARDIS doors.

Which proceeded to do something she'd never seen them do. Open, with no assistance or, apparently, command from the Doctor. He'd told her once that you needed a key to get in without him, that nothing would get through. He'd also mentioned that he and the TARDIS were telepathically linked, hence his ability to open her doors with the snap of his fingers. She, the TARDIS, would know if it was anyone else and simply ignore him or her. She did not let people in.

Slowing, Amy cautiously stepped inside, almost on tiptoes, and glanced around. The control room was empty. Every light in the time machine was blinking red, slow but insistent. Obviously some sort of warning, but apart from the Doctor's conspicuous absence, nothing appeared to be wrong. The TARDIS was not randomly dematerialising, nor was there any sound, other than the pounding hearts of the Ponds. Frowning, Amy stepped to the side to let Rory in, and he closed the doors behind them.

"Something's wrong." Rory's voice was hushed, as if he ought not to be breaking the eerie quiet. Amy could relate, but she huffed noisily anyway, trying to fight the discomfort now easing into her bones.

"Well obviously, stupid face. Doctor! Doctor, where are you?" Pulling on a big smile that she'd learnt long ago would help her fight her fears, Amy lowered her shoulders and stepped under the console, wondering if he'd fallen asleep doing repairs again. He'd done it before, and the TARDIS had taken him here; apparently their house was a safe place for her Time Lord to rest. But she normally landed in the spare bedroom, and the doors never opened until the Doctor opened them himself...

Out of nowhere there was a heavy pounding of booted feet, rising to a crescendo before thudding into the control room, making both the Ponds jump. Looking up through the glass floor of the console platform, both of them raised their eyebrows and began to smile as the Doctor danced around the platform. The smiles fell as he continued, far and away from his usual light-footedness, he was stamping on the ground, beating a fevered, almost tribal tattoo of sound into the air.

"Doctor, are you alright?" Amy had folded her arms again, and she straightened them in annoyance. She was not uncomfortable. She was not scared. This was the TARDIS and the Doctor and she was safe.

These were things which she believed, believed with all her heart in spite of the hairs rising on the back of her neck. The Doctor jumped over the railing of the platform in one sudden movement, landing in a crouch before her and looking up at her with the glossy eyes of a real mad man and did a cartwheel to his feet, shouting as he did, "Donna! No, Jo! Leela? No sorry Astrid! No no no no she's gone no no no no." Then he burst into tears, and Amy realized with sudden, chilling certainty that things were not all right. Nor was she sure they would be.

Both Amy and Rory stepped back and away on instinct. At which point the Doctor stopped crying. He went ramrod straight, like a puppet who'd been pulled too hard and gotten stuck, then raised his eyebrows at them, in a sudden moment of lucidity. "I didn't want-" He cut himself off with a choked gasp, and then his arms and legs jerked and he fell onto his back. He began to writhe on the as if he was falling through the air and not rolling on the ground. Gasping, he shouted a stream of whispers, "why so long why doesn't it stop why can't I just die now oh here it comes..." and then he began to scream, clawing at his own skin and sobbing, rolling and crawling to the central column shuddering and still screaming, on and on and on until Amy had to cover her ears, unable to take this nightmare for her friend.

Next to her, Rory was frozen between horror and concern. When the Doctor entered what looked like a seizure, he moved over, cautious and clumsy in his fear. Quickly he kicked the heavy boxes of tools and gadgets the Doctor always left lying around out of the way. He barely needed to, after a second or so the Doctor stopped, becoming absolutely still. Amy froze too, like a small, scared animal that had just seen it's end, transfixed as Rory apprehensively lifted the Doctor's wrist, checking for a pulse. There was one, but it was weak, and too slow, certainly for a man with two hearts. Forty-five seconds later, the Doctor blinked awake with a gasp, staring up at Rory with a look of horror; horror the like of which Rory had never seen, not in this life or all two thousand years of his other one.

Then the Doctor got to his feet, normally this time, gently pushing Rory's helping hand away, and looked up at his TARDIS. "Why did you bring me to them? They could be hurt! You're supposed to help me, why won't you let me just..."

He cut himself off again, suddenly leaping in front of Rory as if thrown by an invisible hand. He jerked on the floor, his body crumpling around his torso, and rolled onto his back. Choking, he grit his teeth, breathing fast. Sweat began to roll down his face, and in alarm more than anything else; Rory knelt next to him, checking his temperature. "Doctor, what's wrong? What's happening to you?"

Amy, having overcome her initial horror, knelt next to the men and took the Doctor's hand, gently rubbing her thumb over the back of it. The Doctor tried to speak, then screwed his eyes shut in sudden pain. Then, as before, he shuddered, and stilled. His pulse slowed, and forty five seconds later he awoke with a gasp. With desperation he rarely showed, he seized a fistful of Rory's shirt, dragging him closer. "The Conscience Mirrors. Find River. Stay away from me!"

Then he jumped to his feet and ran, out of the console room and down the corridors. Amy stood, ready to follow, but Rory grabbed her hand and quietly shook his head. "He meant it this time." Pursing his lips, he looked down the darkening corridor where the Doctor had headed, listening as the heavy sound of his boots faded into the depths of the TARDIS. "We'd help him more by finding River. And figuring out what the hell is going on."

The TARDIS rumbled, and then her launch lever lifted of its own accord. Without even the groaning sigh of her usual takeoffs, she dematerialised. Rory and Amy grabbed for the struts under the platform, holding on as the TARDIS whirled through space and time, faster than she ever had before. Within moments, they landed, and the TARDIS doors swung open. Both Amy and Rory ran to the threshold, stopping in the doorway.

They were at Storm Cage. River was outside, looking into a small hand mirror, patting some powder onto her nose.

"You know, I asked you to call ahead next time. It's not fair to keep taking me by surprise." She looked up, a large, flirtatious smile on her face, which fell when she saw her mother and no Doctor. Wordlessly, River marched into the TARDIS, the heels of her leather boots clicking on the glass floor. She stopped at the console, looking around as the TARDIS shut her doors and dematerialised into deep space. Hands on her hips, she glared at her parents, acting as if she wanted to be annoyed but simply looking panicked.

"Where is he?"

Rory opened his mouth to explain, but Amy beat him to it, wanting to make up for her earlier impotence. "He turned up at our house, or… the TARDIS did. He's acting weird, like, scary really truly crazy weird. He ran off into the TARDIS and she took us here. He told us to find you. Said something about the, um, Conscience Mirrors?" Amy had planned to go on, but at those words, all the blood drained from River's face. Rory leapt up the steps three at a time to catch his daughter, River Song; psychopathic gun-slinging TARDIS-flying genius, as she literally swooned. River let him, her knees buckling before she took a deep breath and straightened, looking at them both with a face as drained of color as an arctic tundra.

"Where is he?" Her voice shook with what was either fear or grief or fury or all three.

Rory paused, taking her hands in his. "River, what's wrong? What are the Conscience Mirrors?"

River started to shake, and Amy gently put an arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss into her curly hair. "Where. Is. He?" It was a snarl now, but a half-hearted one. The effect was ruined by River's voice breaking halfway through the sentence.

Both her parents stepped forward to wrap their arms around her. And both of them knew something truly was wrong when she did not resist, and when, after a few seconds more, she buried her face in Rory's shoulder and began to cry.

"Shhh. Shhh baby, it's ok." Amy was in full-on mothering mode, gently stroking River's hair, and kissing her forehead and cheeks, holding her close. Rory let herspeak, simply stroking their daughter's arms. River shuddered and began to shake her head, rubbing the tears away and pushing out of their arms.

"No. No it's not. I don't...please, where is the Doctor?"

Amy and Rory glanced at one another, making a silent agreement. Rory folded his arms and braced himself."No." River looked murderous, and he held up his hands in an gesture of appeasement. "No, just, not yet. Please, River, please tell us what is going on."

He reached out for River's hand, but this time she stepped away. The tears on her cheeks shone like drops of blood in the TARDIS' emergency lighting. Rory sighed, following her anyway, still holding out his hand. "Meldie." It was his nickname for her, his special nickname that no one else used. When they'd been younger, before they'd known who she was, Rory couldn't say Melody. So he'd say Meldie. It was his way of reminding her they were on the same side. "Meldie, please, none of us can help him if we don't all know what we're dealing with. The TARDIS came to us first. She did it for a reason, you know that."

River was very still, backed against the railing of the console platform and holding onto it as if for dear life. Rory tilted his head to the side, giving her a gentle, lopsided smile. "Please let us help."

The TARDIS hummed in the background, a quiet, constant sound of life that moved gently around the room. Rory's smile never fell, and after a few seconds, River let out a sigh in a quick, deep rush of air, her chest rising and falling in a sudden movement of surrender. "Alright. But you're not going to like it."

Rory gave a low chuckle. "I'd sort of guessed that bit."

* * *

**AN: Hello! So, finally finished this. It's going to be short-ish story, 3-6 chapters depending on how long I make them. Set in the little AU-friendly world between the end of series 6 and the start of series 7. Bits of wibbly wobbly canon (the Doctor's family, later) are based on Lance Parkin's Infinity Doctors, and generally New Who. But it's wibbly wobbly fanfiction, so please take it as it is meant, and that is not an assertion of anything!**

**Neither Doctor Who, nor the characters belong to me, but all original ideas, characters and plotlines do, so please don't steal. (Ta very much!)**

**Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!**

**~LiS**


	2. Breaking The Mind

_**(Quick note: there's a little graphic horror/violence toward the end of this chapter. Please be careful.)**_

* * *

"The Conscience Mirrors were invented by the Could've Been King. They are among a few relics of the Time War that fell through the cracks that were somehow left behind. Most people in my time believe them to be a legend, a horror story told to frighten soldiers and warmongers." River took a deep breath, looking down into her laps, where her hands were neatly clasped and white knuckled. "The Order of the Silence got wind of them...I can't remember much about those days. You know that. But...for some reason, the Silence would not pursue the story. Not even to kill the Doctor." River pursed her lips, giving a stiff, one shouldered shrug, and still not meeting her parent's eyes. "If you ask me, they were scared. Any sane person would be." She sniffed; glancing around the control room, and both Amy and Rory knew she was looking for the Doctor.

Amy bit her lip, and Rory took her hand. River continued. "The Conscience Mirrors are...a prison, if you like. More specifically: a labyrinth. A labyrinth that is a prison, walled with mirrors. The mirrors are constructed, on a sub-atomic level, to have a very particular telepathic effect on any living organism. Apparently, they are seamless, endless liquid corridors of mirrors, winding on forever, whispering to your mind. The idea always had a sort of terrible beauty." River was quiet for a moment. She lifted a hand from her lap, and it trembled as she ran it through her hair before returning to her knees, holding the other in a tight, desperate embrace. "Terrible, because they play on your guilt. They are a conscience, in a way." River laughed, but silent tears had begun to stream down her face. "Not the sort you should listen to. They take the memory of everyone you've ever killed, and construct an image. That image follows you, through the mirrors, sometimes for hours. Sometimes days. Sometimes seconds. And then it steps out of the walls, those endless, dizzy, silver walls, and kills you the way it was killed.

"At least, that's what it feels like. But then you wake up, and face the next. And the next. And the..." River voice died, and took several deep breaths, delicately brushing the tears away from her face. "As you know, the Doctor has destroyed several civilizations, including his own. He has killed many, many people. But the mirrors do not stop at outright, deliberate murder." River gave a twisted smile to her lap, wringing her hands. Amy and Rory, leaning on the console before her, simply stared, digesting the horror of what she was telling them; the implications. "The mirrors also torment you with everyone whose death you believe you have caused, or are responsible for, in someway. If someone sacrifices themselves for you. If there is an accident you believe was your fault. A loved one you could do nothing to save. As long as you believe it was your fault, they will take that emotion. Amplify it. Use it to break your heart." River's voice broke, and she fell silent. Amy looped her arms around her, pressing her face into her daughter's hair.

Rory watched them, his arms folded, his eyes distant. How many people had the Doctor killed? Billions? How many lives did he carry on his shoulders? How many dead faces chased him through the maze?

River, after a moment more, took a deep breath and spoke again. Amy stepped back, but kept her arm around her daughter's shoulders. "You can see why this would be a terrible weapon, in any war. Especially a Time War, with soldiers dying and living and dying again...I don't know how the Doctor got in, or how he got out. But I know he needs us. Now please tell me where he is."

Rory nodded, taking the hands of his daughter and wife, and leading them down the corridor. "This way."

The TARDIS lit the way, turning on only the relevant lights, leading them through her own winding maze. As they got closer, they could hear the Doctor's sobbing, echoing off the walls. River, Amy and Rory pressed tighter together, their paces quickening in unison.

When they found the Doctor, he was curled into a corner, banging his head against the wall. He wore some sort of helmet, a net of electrodes and wires around his skull. They couldn't make out what he was saying until they were barely a metre away, at which point they could see the tears streaming down his cheeks, falling and falling and falling, as if they would never stop.

All of them were quiet, listening to his rapid, hoarse whispers, watching as he squeezed his eyes shut. "Mother mother mother I'm sorry I'm sorry mother mother mother please spare me I'm sorry please I'm lost I didn't want to it hurts it hurts it hurts..." He began to writhe in agony, clawing at his skin. Amy buried her face in Rory's shoulder, hiding it there, in the soft, worn fabric of his shirt. River knelt before the Doctor, very gently pulling him into her arms, restraining his hands and rocking him like a child.

"It's alright Doctor. It's ok, dear one. Sweetie. It's over now. They're gone. It's over." Ignoring her own tears, River gently began to kiss away the Doctor's. Rory watched silently, holding Amy and wondering if perhaps he should leave them be. But then the Doctor went into another seizure, his breathing coming in short, sharp gasps. River, Amy and he backed away, and Rory kicked away a metal toolbox, realising belatedly that they were in the medical bay.

"He did that before. River, why would he do that?" River was ignoring him, instead she was rifling through the toolbox, tapping away at a small handheld device inset into the lid. She stared at the Doctor. "You're too good, sweetie. You're too good." She said it softly, and with pity, as the Doctor passed out on the ground. Rory checked his watch, and sure enough, forty five seconds later, the Doctor woke up.

His eyes met River's, and he nodded at her. "You understand. Reconstruction. Trauma. Telepathy." He glanced at the Ponds. "I can't." Then he gave a shout of pain and rolled away. He started to whisper again, and all three of them braced themselves. Amy moved from Rory to kneel next to the Doctor, holding him as River had only moments before.

Rory knelt next to his daughter. "So has the helmet got anything to do with the PTSD?"

River sniffed, looking a little surprised. "You catch on fast."

"I am still a qualified nurse." Rory almost smiled, and then the smile fell from his face. "I'm guessing that mind of his makes the flashbacks worse." River's hands stilled in the box, and she nodded once.

"Infinitely. Besides, pain is in the mind. He's reliving every one." She paused, shutting her eyes and barely managing a whisper. "And there are billions." Tenderly, Rory rested his hand on her back, rubbing soft, small circles.

"So, helmet?"

"The Doctor, like all Time Lords, has a certain level of telepathic ability." River's voice was calm, business like almost, and Rory recognised the practical approach as her way of dealing with the situation. "That helmet contains it, loops it right back into his own mind. Had he not put it on, in his mentally shattered state, he would not have been able to keep up his shields. After one, maybe two more flashbacks, he would have begun to broadcast them. We would have had to relive them with him. He wanted to spare us from that." River paused, a small, affectionate smile creeping over her lips. "He is in the most incredible pain, suffering the most incredible grief, and the first thing he thought of was keeping us safe."

Rory nodded. "Sounds like the Doctor. I can hear a but coming."

River bit her lip. "The downside is that by sending the signals back, the flashbacks may double or triple in strength, and therefore multiply the damage to his psychological wellbeing. I honestly don't know how long his mind can take it."

"How bad are we talking? Madness? PVS?" Rory was trying very hard to keep calm, but as the options rose to his medical mind in neat, horrifying order, it was hard to keep the panic from his voice.

"He's already mad. Persistent Vegetative State is likely, and..." River took a deep breath, staring hard at the toolbox. "Shutdown, total brain death, is also a possibility."

Amy, whose attention until then had been focused on the Doctor, looked up in horror. In her lap, he was still once more, reliving another death. "You mean it could kill him?" Without asking any further questions, she unclipped the helmet and took it off the Doctor's head, throwing it across the room. River and Rory moved to stop her, but it was too late.

Blearily, like a child, the Doctor blinked awake. He glanced at them all, frowning at River and Rory's worried expressions. "What..." Before he even finished the question, his eyes glazed over and he was thrown back into another flashback. This time, however, he took the others with him.

Amy looked around her. River had been right. The labyrinth was beautiful in a way, endless, seamless mirrors echoing one another to eternity. Rory, next to her, reached out to take her hand. River marched off to find the Doctor.

A million reflections of her daughter walked away, and Amy could feel herself becoming dizzy; the sheer infinity of it all was enough to twist her mind. Rory put his arm around her. "Maybe we should shut our eyes. Keep it out." Amy did as he suggested, but the mirrors were still there. She grimaced.

"It's not working." Next to her, Rory let out a soft, shaking breath.

"I know." River was no longer in sight. The tunnels were even roofed in mirrors, and she'd long since turned the corner. Wherever the corner was.

"Die."

The weird, broken voice was that of a Dalek. It was halfway down the corridor, emerging from the mirror. In front of it was a tall, slender woman in a mixture of modern combats and medieval armor. She stared at them in sheer panic.

"Run! Brutus, just go!"

She herself ran back into the mirror. The Dalek followed. Pausing, Amy and Rory stared at the wall. The Dalek shot the woman in the back, and she crumpled, her face screwing up in pain. She fell to her knees, but then she started to smile. Her skin began to glow gold, and she pulled out a gun in trembling fingers. And then she and the Dalek were enveloped in flame. The woman's screams, and her writhing shadow in the fire, echoed after the Ponds as they ran, hands in front of them, trying to distinguish the walls from the corridors.

Rory led the way, and Amy crashed into him when he came to a grinding halt. All around them, the mirrors were solid. They'd run into a dead end.

"It's just a dream. Right? We just have to remember that." Rory didn't need to hear the high, shaking panic in Amy's voice, her sweaty palm clutching his told him more than enough.

Trying to stay calm, he nodded. He was a two thousand year old Centurion. This was just a dream.

Except, then he wasn't a centurion. He was a woman, called Minerva. Next to him, Amy faded away.

A Dalek whirred around the corner of a ruined building; specially modified for battle. Its cylindrical body was shaped like a blade, bulging in the center. Two heavy guns glared red from its sides. It was smoking, clearly injured but still deadly. The eye-stalk moved to meet their gaze, Rory and Minerva, and the monster gave a dead, twisted command. "Die."

They turned and started running, across the battlefield. There might be enough time. The guns were still charging. They could make it. The bodies of their fallen comrades lay dismembered and bloody, horribly warped by fire, or glowing with the embers of a regeneration that began too late. The whole world; literally - the battlefield was a planet, was blackened and broken, smoking and stinking with blood and acid. Their feet sank into something soft, tripping them, and they glanced down in time to see the face of a friend. His name was Garamond. His teeth were a red and white mess in his ripped mouth.

Fighting bile, they kept running. In the distance, a figure stood, built like a mountain with short black hair and narrow green eyes. Pure fear shot through them. "Run! Brutus! Just go!" They never got to say they loved him.

A blast from the Dalek's guns stabbed into their back, a hot searing punch that scorched their secondary heart, ripping a hole through their lungs and pulverizing their rib cage. Wearily, they waited for the follow-up, the shot that would kill, and stop their re-generation. None came.

That was its last shot. Dizzy, vicious exhilaration flooded through them, and they gave the mental command to regenerate, the hot fizzing burn of their rebirth enveloping their senses. Trying to stay focused, they reached for their gun. They could save Brutus, tell him the truth, escape this place...

The roar of the fires had been constant, the fire and the bullets and the screams. But suddenly it rose, rose to an impossible crescendo, like the Earthling's Hell had risen out of the stars. The screams rose too, until all that remained was crackle and shriek and roar. There was a soft, enormous rush, and the fire flung itself across the planet, swallowing it.

They felt the fire seize them in its jaws, felt it gnawing, gnawing its way down through their skin, and flesh and nerves. They felt their eyes melt and their tongues shrivel. And then there was nothing.

Amy, Rory, River and the Doctor came to with a gasp. Amy was hyperventilating. Rory sat, still and quiet for a moment. Then he threw up. He couldn't get the bitter taste of the burning tongue from his mouth. He shut his eyes, trying to shut the memory into the back of his head, wiping his mouth and moving to Amy, holding her trembling body and rubbing slow circles on her back. River dragged herself to the nearest wall and leaned against it, closing her eyes. Her hands were shaking.

The Doctor sighed. "I'm sorry." They were the words of a dying man, filled with his deepest, most passionate regrets. Then he grabbed the wire helmet and pulled it back on. "I think I'm going mad. River. Try Delirium. And all of you." The Doctor's voice was firm and angry, and all three of them met his gaze. "Stay. Away. From me." His voice broke a little, and he gave them a half-hearted smile. "I'll survive."

Then his eyes glazed over once more.


	3. Dysfunctional

"What's Delirium?" Together, Rory and River had strapped the Doctor down to one of the beds in the medical bay. Amy had dug up pillows and blankets, but all three of them failed to stifle their guilt, looking at him, shaking and restrained and trapped in the hell of his mind.

Still, none could stay with him for the moment. Their sanity depended on it. Instead they had retreated to the control room. The TARDIS' lights were warm, pale amber once more, as if she was less worried, now she knew something was being done. River was at the monitor, tapping away in Gallifreyan.

She paused at Rory's question, and turned to him. "Delirium was, or is, the planetary equivalent of an opium den. It's run by an alien mafia, who call themselves the Upyri. Time we're aiming for, it's in the middle of a civil war."

Rory raised his eyebrows. "And it's going to help us how?"

River glanced in the direction of the medical bay. "It's a long shot. But in the 37th century, Grandfather Upyri allegedly discovered pure Oblivion. A substance that could simply erase your memories. The dosage dictated how much was lost. Some saw it as a poison, some as a miracle. A way to escape the past." She sounded wistful, and Rory wondered if she was thinking of her time with the Silence, being trained to be a killer.

Between them, Amy shook her head. "We can't erase his memories. Not to the first person he killed. That's his life, and our memories make us. He wouldn't be the Doctor."

Both River and Rory turned to her. Amy was frowning, and her cheeks were stained with tears. Both her husband and her daughter recognised her anger as her way of dealing with her worry. River crouched down so that she was level with Amy, pulling on a soft, patient smile.

"I wouldn't dream of it. Much as I'd like to spare him the pain, he'd never forgive me."

Amy scowled. "So what's the point of this? Why aren't we helping him already?"

River's expression didn't change; still a small, soft smile and steady gaze. "Well, this drug could be used to erase his memory of the Conscience Mirrors. Save him and his mind from the trauma the experience inflicted."

Arms folded, Amy turned and stared straight into her daughter's eyes, still frowning deeply. "We can save him?" River nodded, straightening with a soft sigh and turning back to the monitor.

"I should be able to get us there, but it won't be easy. We'll have to go through the Upyri, and they're not pushovers. Especially in wartime." River hesitated, and Amy stood.

"We'll have to kill?"

Rory hesitantly raised a hand. "I get we're going extreme, but can we keep killing people to a minimum?"

River shrugged. "We can try. But if we're going to survive, we're going to have to fight. Can you do that?" Huffing, Amy spun on her heel, heading for the medical bay.

"Get the guns. Don't ask stupid questions."

Scowling at the screen, River sighed. "Yes, mother." She glanced at Rory out of the corner of her eye. "Don't you hate it when she's worried?"

Trying to be diplomatic, he didn't know if Amy was out of earshot, Rory shrugged. "She's got good reason to be." River sighed again.

"Even if we land in Indulgence, their capital city, there are still two very paranoid, armies to sneak past. One of which will be drugged to high heaven." Rory stepped next to her, looking at the screen, listing numbers and showing diagrams of various, arabesque palaces.

"But the sneaking will be the easy part, right? Big palaces like that, it'd be easy to keep to the shadows."

"Maybe." River didn't sound sure. Rory tried not to let the fact worry him. Reaching up, she tapped on one of the blueprints for the buildings, and the image filled the screen. It was a distinctly spiky looking maze of turrets, arranged in an inelegant, heavily fortified heap.

"This is the really tricky bit, if we get this far. We'll need to break into the Rebel headquarters. Historically, they're the good guys, but right now, they'll shoot first and ask questions later. "

Rory frowned. "If they're the good guys, couldn't we just ask nicely?"

River looked at him, digging her gun from its holster and jumping down from the platform, heading for the doors. "You're welcome to try. Don't follow me. You'll put us both in danger. If I'm not back in twenty-four hours, I've programmed the TARDIS to come pick me up."

"You can do that..." Rory paused, getting his priorities straight. Murderous psychopath genius she may be, but River was still his daughter. "What are you going to do?"

River grinned, snapping the safety on her gun. "Exactly as my mother tells me."

In the Medical Bay, the Doctor had just passed out after another death. Crying silently, Amy held his hand in hers, gently rubbing circles on it with her thumb.

"It'll be ok. We're going to make it go away. It'll be alright." She wasn't sure whom she was whispering the words for, the Doctor or herself. Both of them, really. His skin was cold, too cold, and damp with sweat. It looked sickly in the clean white lights of the medical bay. After a few seconds more, he blinked awake, his eyes searching the room quickly before resting on her.

Bravely, Amy gave him a small smile. "It's going to be ok. We're going to help you."

The Doctor sighed, relaxing into the gurney onto which he was strapped. "Didn't I tell you to stay away?" He sounded tired, like the old man he was. His voice was rough from the screaming.

Squeezing his hand gently, Amy grinned. "Well, River doesn't like to do as she's told."

Abruptly, the Doctor's eyes became impossibly sad. "I'm sorry."

"For what? I'm sorry. We should have helped you sooner. You shouldn't have to..."

"About River." The Doctor interrupted Amy, mid-flow and mid-worry. Falling silent, Amy stared down at his hand, at the familiar veins and the shape of his knuckles. After a moment she shrugged. They'd never really spoken about this; it wasn't something either of them wanted to make time for. The Doctor had apologised, of course, again and again. But normally Amy brushed it off, changed the subject, and reminded herself why she loved him so dearly.

Today she shrugged. "There was nothing more you could have done."

"It felt like you lost her, didn't it? As if she died." It was less of a question, more a statement. The Doctor watched her calmly, waiting for a response. Amy let go of his hand.

"I did lose her. Twice. Once when she was born. And again, when she was in my arms, and she was supposed to be safe." Amy stopped, hearing her own voice rising, feeling the tears stinging behind her eyes. She shook her head, running a hand through her hair. "You've ah, you've not been awake for this long since...Are you getting better?"

"No." He said it without regret, or fear. A calm statement of fact. Amy turned to meet his eyes once more, and he gave her a small smile. "It's still happening. The process was always going to be erratic."

Amy frowned. "What process?"

Quietly, the Doctor laughed and raised his eyebrows, lifting his hands and splaying his fingers against the restraints. "Going mad." Amy shut her eyes, taking his hand again.

"Shut up. Just shut up. That's not going to happen." Weakly, the Doctor squeezed her fingers, turning his head to stare at the lights above him.

"We shall see." For a moment, they were quiet, Amy with her shoulders hunched, her hair hiding her face. The Doctor basked in the silence of his brief reprieve.

"I had children, who I lost." He said it softly, as if afraid to put the words into the air. Amy lifted her head to look at him. The Doctor didn't smile this time when he turned to her. Instead he wept, quietly. Amy watched the tears trailing down his cheeks. After a second, he shut his eyes, heaving a deep sigh. Then he smiled a little, hiding behind the dark of his eyelids.

"A long time ago. Before the War. Before it all. Seven of them. Can you imagine? They were everywhere. Always underfoot." He chuckled. Amy shifted, getting comfortable. She'd known, or at least, assumed the Doctor had had children, but he'd never spoken of them. She wasn't sure he would have done, had he been entirely in his right mind. But she didn't want to stop him now. So she listened.

"Rowena was the oldest. Beautiful, intelligent, kind as her mother. So solemn! Though when she laughed, everyone did. Then Meredith, my little Merry girl, always smiling, joking, making mischief… She was never still. Alexander and Michael." The Doctor grinned. "They drove their sisters mad. Protective to a fault, though, if anyone else should try. And both of them ginger! The most beautiful red hair. I don't know where they got it from. Summer. Bound them all together. Ever since she was born. My wife...always said it was a sentimental name. But it fit. Imogen, the quiet one. Loved to hide in my study. I can't tell you the times I'd find her under my desk...Spent so much time inside, her skin was pale as china. We treated like it too. As if she might break at any second. Samuel was three. Round and freckled, always laughing. He had these curls...he wouldn't let us cut them. Screamed blue murder when we tried to get the mud out. And then laughed at the expressions on our faces." The Doctor smiled. "He was always trying to keep up with his brothers...Rowena, bless her, would come running back all in a fluster, Samuel bundled in her arms, covered head to toe in who knew what."

Amy was smiling with the Doctor by now, imagining the children's faces, the laughter in his household. The Doctor fell silent, and for a moment he looked peaceful, in spite of the tears still falling down his cheeks. With his eyes shut, and a faint smile around his mouth, he looked as if he had seen an angel.

"Were you happy?" Amy's question was quiet. She realised, suddenly, with the strangest sense of sadness, that though she had seen the Doctor giddy, and exhilarated, excited and enamored, she didn't think she'd ever seen him happy. Not like this.

The Doctor frowned, letting go of her hand and opening his eyes. "I was. Blissfully. So happy that I left."

"What?"

Seeing her confusion, the Doctor shook his head as best he could, what with the restraints. "Not permanently. The Gallifreyan Council asked me to do something for them. A task they could not do themselves...When I returned, it transpired that they had found my home. They had found my family, and our servants. My children, my wife...They locked them inside and burnt it to the ground." The Doctor's brows lifted, and his face twisted into an expression of grief, and pain, the deepest loss. "I returned to ashes."

"But...why? Why would they...?" Amy couldn't bring herself to say it, 'murder them'. In the back of her mind, the children began to fade like old photos.

"Our marriage was not permitted." The Doctor clenched his jaw, and his fists, taking a deep breath through flared nostrils. "I was seen as her superior. She was several years my senior. Our children were considered...mistakes. They said it was an accident, of course, local ruffians getting out of hand. But…" More tears seeped from the corners of his eyes. "My Imogen, a mistake? Alexander, Rowena, Michael. Meredith and Summer, how could they...Samuel..." His voice broke.

Wordlessly, Amy leaned forwards, wrapping her arms around him and resting her head on his chest, listening the dull, persistent double thud of his hearts. "I always knew." She could feel him breathing beneath her head, feel the faint movement of the whisper as it left his body. "I knew the hole, left inside. That emptiness, like someone took you apart. Like you're missing something, something so important, and you know...You _know_ you cannot live without it. Yet somehow, you must. It is expected, as if that were easy..." The Doctor let out a deep breath, and Amy slid one of her hands up to her own heart, resting it there over River's space. She had River now, in a way. But her child was still lost. Melody was never coming back.

The Doctor paused. "Will you let me up?" Sitting up, Amy sniffed; brushing away tears she hadn't realised had fallen.

"Right, yeah. As long as..."

"I think we're safe for the moment." The Doctor gave her a small smile, and Amy set to work undoing the straps. Once he was free, the Doctor sat up, clutching the side of the bed and resting his toes on the ground. Amy sat next to him, and leaned into his shoulder. Gently he kissed the top of her head.

Both of them were quiet. Amy didn't know what to say. What could she say? Any words seemed empty, useless by now. She hated it. The Doctor shifted, and wrung his hands together. After a moment longer, he spoke again. "I had one more child. Jenny. Not long ago. She was...like a clone, a child born of my DNA alone. I...resisted, until the end. She sacrificed herself for me." The Doctor paused, shaking. "I remember all of my children. I feel the emptiness of their footprints in my hearts. But, I never knew how they felt, when they died. Now I do." The words were despair. "And the hole burns with their agony, and I can never forget. I don't want to remember them like that." He broke down, and Amy stood, pulling him into a hug and crying with him, holding him tightly to her, and pressing her face into his silly tweed jacket.

"You don't have to. Remember them as they were. Beautiful and laughing and living." She whispered the words into his ear. The Doctor heaved a soft sob.

"I can't. I keep trying, but I can't. Amy… I can hear them screaming." He said it desperately, clutching at her jacket, and Amy's blood ran cold, imagining how that would feel, and then pushing the thought away with all her might. Instead, she pressed a kiss into his hair and held him close.

"Not for much longer. We're going to fix this. We'll make it go away."


	4. On Monsters

The first time Rory went to check on Amy, she and the Doctor were locked in one another's embrace, both weeping quietly. Having long since learnt the art of a soft footstep, he left again, knowing that both needed one another at the moment, and not an audience. He returned two hours later.

He'd been waiting in the console room, half expecting Amy to come out. She didn't, so he went to find her. Amy and the Doctor were fast asleep on one another, like puppies. Amy's head was buried in the crook of the Doctor's shoulder, and her arms were limp over his waist. The Doctor's legs were hooked around hers, and he was holding her close, curled around her protectively. Both of them were close to tumbling off the gurney, which was designed only for one, but neither seemed to mind.

Rory paused for a moment, smiling a little. Of course, sometimes he was jealous of them; though that had mostly faded. Sometimes he deeply envied their closeness. But other times...There was something so deep, and so close in Amy's friendship with the Doctor, and his with her, that Rory could only find it in himself to love them both more.

For a second, he considered leaving again. But then the Doctor muttered in his sleep, frowning, and Rory remembered that he was unwell; was suffering, and that it would do Amy no good to wake up to his screams. As gently as he could, Rory slipped his arms under Amy's shoulders and legs, and pulled her away. The Doctor's eyes snapped open immediately, though Amy only stirred, burying her face in Rory's shirt and inhaling deeply.

Awkwardly, Rory jerked his head in the direction of their room, and the Doctor nodded, giving him a faint smile. Without another word, Rory carried Amy away, laying her to rest in their bed (now a priceless antique, king-sized affair). Tenderly, he tucked her in, and pressed a light kiss to her cheek.

"I'll look after him now. You need to rest."

Squeezing her hand gently, he pressed another kiss to her forehead and left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Back in the medical bay, the Doctor was sitting up. He cocked his head to the side when Rory came back in, eyes burning with a too-feverish curiosity.

"Don't you need to sleep too?"

Rory shrugged. "Guess I'm not tired yet."

The Doctor frowned. "The TARDIS landed in your garden at 8.32.47pm Earth time, you would have woken at around 6am for your work. You had been awake, by that point, for 14 hours, 32 minutes, 47 seconds. You have been in the TARDIS for 5 hours, 4 minutes and 8 seconds. Thus you have been awake for 19 hours, 36 minutes, and 55 seconds. This is almost double the standard waking cycle of homo sapiens, on average ten hours, moving to twelve on occasion. Possible diagnosis, insomnia?" The Doctor had been speaking at a rapid pace, the rest of him absolutely still, like a machine. At the last word, he cocked his head to the other side in a quick, birdlike movement and gave Rory a big, fevered smile. "Or just bad dreams?"

Frowning, Rory leaned forward, and rested the back of his palm on the Doctor's forehead. Once again, he was burning up. Standing, Rory gently pushed the Doctor onto his back. "You should lie down..." The Doctor complied, but seemed to ignore the actual words. Instead, he kept staring at Rory with his too bright eyes.

"Bad dreams or insomnia? Both? No shame in it. Everyone has nightmares. Especially soldiers." He was still speaking too fast. On a hunch, Rory gently took his pulse; it was racing unhealthily fast, as if he was deeply afraid. Trying to be reassuring, he sat on the edge of the bed, and gave the Doctor his nice smile; the one he gave the children going in for operations, and the terrified strangers they met on their mad escapades.

"Well, neither of us are soldiers any more."

"No. Right. Of course. I put the memories to sleep. We can do that, otherwise, too much information, lives are too long, Millenia can't fit in a brain, even a Time Lord's. My war memories were sleeping, but people keep fighting." The Doctor gave a hysterical laugh. "They don't know how stupid they are! Wake up the lion, it just might bite! War drove me mad, makes us all a bit mental doesn't it? But it ate me up, ripped my heart out, twisted it round, rotted it to the core. I don't know what I'd have done, after, if it wasn't for." He stopped, abruptly, going absolutely silent and panting a little to get his breath back. Rory looked at him, noting the sweat on his brow, the contraction of his pupils.

"If it wasn't for what?"

"It's a secret." The Doctor whispered the words, and Rory nodded, not expecting to hear any more. Normally he wouldn't. But this time, the Doctor continued. "I... there was a girl. Rose. Love, I think." His eyes met Rory's, suddenly, painfully lucid, and deeply sad. "I suppose that kept you sane. It saved me."

Taking this in, Rory took a deep breath, thinking of the shadows and echoes and conflict of two thousand years, slumbering in his mind like a monster. He nodded. "Yeah, it did." Then he turned to the Doctor, his friend. "But, there's no shame in it. Losing it a little. It'd be worse if it didn't touch you. If you saw all that death, and didn't feel it."

The Doctor was quiet for a moment, and then he glanced away, almost as if he was ashamed. The wires around his head scratched against the sheets. The TARDIS hummed around them, quietly, more so than usual. Rory wondered where River was, how she was doing.

"In a way, this is all very balanced. The Could've Been King made the Mirrors. I destroyed one of his armies. There is an element of poetry to it. I drove them mad, he broke my mind." The Doctor giggled, and Rory shifted, his skin crawling a little. He loved the Doctor, like a brother, or a son, a friend or an uncle. But his madness was more than a little unsettling, not least because Rory felt that in some way, all of this was probably true.

"Do you know what a Meanwhile is, Rory?" Rory shook his head, wanting this line of conversation to end, before it got added to his long catalogue of nightmares keeping sleep at bay. "I don't really..."

"It's a monster." The Doctor didn't seem to have heard him; instead he was staring up at the med-bay light, eyes wide and almost childlike. "It plays with time. Mostly disease. They're humanoid, at least half. The other half is the disease. Frostbite. Leprosy. Cancer. All the nasty ones..." His voice trailed off. "You know how it is, to be a sergeant? You feel, resigned...you're not stupid, you know not all of them will survive. But responsible, too. And burdened, with this mad, desperate hope." The Doctor clenched his fists in the sheets, and Rory said nothing. Because he knew exactly what it felt like. "This hope, that somehow, of all the soldiers in all the world, you'll be the one to keep them safe. Somehow, they'll all live. That in spite of the fact you know, you know some will die, you believe you personally can ensure that everybody lives. And you work for it, and you stick to it, and you keep believing it, even as they fall away." The Doctor sniffed, pursing his lips, and Rory stared at the floor, thinking of young Romans, and all the soldiers through the ages, the boys who would not survive...

"There was one. I knew his Mother. His name was Kieran. Pretty child, too slender. Not enough strength. Beautiful poet, no mind for military. Never designed for war." The Doctor took a deep breath. "And I had to take him. He'd chosen to enlist, he had to come. Too damn brave, for all his airs and graces." He smiled a little. "The rest of them bullied him something horrid to begin with. First day on the frontline, he saved three of their lives. Sheer reckless bravery."

Rory's heart sank. Because he knew this story. And it never ended well for the hero. Still wanting the Doctor to stop, he shook his head, murmuring quietly, "you should get some rest, while you can."

Again, the Doctor ignored him. "It was a Meanwhile that killed him. They take your timeline, and throw something in; something extra, that happened while you were too busy living. This one was frostbite." The Doctor paused, and his voice dropped, low and soft and almost frightened. "He went white, first. Too white. Looked like a statue. And then the blisters, yellow and waxy and swelling up over his skin. Ruined his looks. The blue, purple, black. And he fell apart, right in front of me. Less than three minutes." The Doctor shook his head, clenching his jaw. "I hated them for that. I was young, and he was the first, the first to die in my care, in that war. So I was a good soldier. I did as I was told. And I planned my revenge."

It didn't sound right, the word revenge coming out of the Doctor's mouth. Rory had seen him angry, had seen him furious, violent and downright deadly. He'd seen his judgment skewed, and broken, but he'd never seen the Doctor so openly admit to something he also condemned. Rory wondered if this was the reason why; if perhaps everything the Doctor refused to condone had a story to it, a crime of which he was guilty.

"Meanwhiles and Neverweres. The latter were just as bad, creatures - monsters and shapeshifters that played on your deepest, most impossible fears. The horrors and betrayals that must never happen, but keep you up at night anyway, wondering, what if? I thought I was doing a good thing. Told myself that...We finally got where I was aiming for. Right outside the jaws of the Nightmare child. I broke into the ship leading their fleet, overrode the controls, distorted the displays, and sent the signal to the rest." The Doctor paused. "Forty thousand ships, two thousand aboard each one, three on the leader. It was a relatively small kill, in that war." He tilted his head to the side. "Ninety thousand was just a day's work. Of course we went mad."

The Doctor was quiet for a moment, and Rory took a deep breath, hoping he was finished. He wished he had the gumption to just put the Doctor to sleep already, dose him up with one of the dozens of sedatives kept here. He didn't want to hear this... But he knew the Doctor needed to say it. So he listened.

"We engaged them in a firefight. They had their tricks, and their monstrosities, but a sky battle is a sky battle. They took down some of our ships, we took some of theirs...They honestly thought they were winning." He paused. "They were celebrating, when I cut the signal I'd been using. The Nightmare Child...it was the most terrible thing. Its tongue was blacker than darkness, forked and stretching out in knots and spirals for miles. And the second you touched it, there was no escape. Like a black hole...The whole fleet was trapped, like flies on paper. They could see it now, behind them, that great Maw of ice and flame and metal, and darkness which led we knew not where." The Doctor lifted a shaking hand to his brow, rubbing away the sweat there. "We had visual. I'd been clever with it. So clever. We could see them all. My army was cheering, celebrating a great victory. I laughed."

Rory ran a hand over the back of his head, standing. He didn't want to think of this. Didn't want it recalling his own memories of a dozen wars. He didn't want there to be more to this.

"They killed themselves. None of us knew, what happened in the jaws of the Nightmare child, but we'd all heard stories. And rather than find out, they killed themselves. All ninety thousand of them. All that went into that thing's mouth were ships and corpses." The Doctor's voice broke, and on impulse, Rory took his hand, holding it tight. The Doctor's eyes met his, and they were still wide, and childlike; far from the gaze of a cold-blooded killer. "They gave me a medal. A promotion. I tried to kill myself." He shrugged, and a tear rolled down his cheek. "Too much of a coward. And then they told me; about the final plan. Kill the universe, just so we could win. I didn't want any more blood on my hands. But I didn't have a choice. Did I?" Rory stared at the man beneath him, the man he had seen save thousands of lives. The man who had sacrificed himself dozens of times. Quietly, he tried to reconcile the hero he had known, with the broken man on the bed. And he realised that there had never been any difference between the two. That the reason he liked the Doctor, was because he wasn't perfect, because he was flawed, and a little mad, and dangerous; and he spent every day of his existence trying to be better, in spite of all the horror.

Gently, Rory pulled the Doctor into a sitting position. The Time Lord was still staring at him with his too wide eyes, still, he suspected, not all there. Carefully, Rory pulled him into a hug. "Of course you didn't have a choice."

The Doctor sagged against him, neither leaning into the embrace nor pulling away, going limp instead, like a doll. "I'm a monster."

Rory pulled back, shaking his head and smiling at the mad, sad man before him. "No, you're the Doctor. You save us from the monsters. And you always will."

Shaking his head, the Doctor opened his mouth, as if to protest. And then his back arched, and he screwed his eyes shut. The wires above his head began to buzz like angry bees, and he fell on to the ground. "Starting again."

He managed to growl the words through gritted teeth, and then he was lost. Lost to the memories, and the guilt. To the monsters.

* * *

**AN: Glad some of you are enjoying this, thank you to those who left reviews!**

**LiS**


	5. Domesticity

River got back 23 hours and 58 minutes later. Rory had given the Doctor a sedative, hoping it would spare him the pain of his flashbacks for a few hours. Amy had woken up, demanding to know where their daughter was, and he'd explained. Now both of them stood nervously in the control room.

They both knew River could take care of herself. But she was still their daughter. (And with the Doctor as he was, nothing seemed very certain any more.)

First, a sack full of guns was tossed through the door, followed closely after by River herself, firing warning shots and limping heavily. She paused in her shooting to slam the door shut, and whirled on her parents. "Launch her. Now!" Amy spun to the controls, heaving the launching lever, while Rory jumped down the steps, helping River to sit down and examining her leg.

"You got shot."

River shrugged. "I was raiding an armory. These things happen, father."

Rory scowled, applying pressure to the wound. Amy ran out of the control room and came back with his first aid kit, letting her husband do what he did best while she held River's hand. "Why would you do this? If you needed our help you should have said!"

"We're going to need to get the bullet out. Bring my kit."

River rolled her eyes, but her skin was frighteningly pale, and she winced when Rory slid his arm under her legs and lifted her, carrying her to the medical bay. Once there, her gaze went to the Doctor.

"Is he alright?"

"You've got a bullet in your leg." Rory all but growled the words, to the surprise of both women. "Worry about yourself for once!" Without another word, he turned back to his work, fishing some forceps out of his medical kit and pulling out the bullet. It hadn't gone too deep, nor damaged any nerves. She'd been lucky.

Amy kept her eyes focused on River, wishing she couldn't hear the sound of Rory stitching up her leg. "It's ok."

Amy smiled at River, reaching out with her free hand to push back her hair. "I should be the one saying that."

River laughed a little, and it fell into a sigh as Rory gave carefully inserted a painkiller into her arm. "Well, we've always had a dysfunctional relationship, haven't we?" River sighed again, still smiling at Amy, and shut her eyes, passing into unconsciousness. Amy gently rested her hand on her belly before turning to Rory.

"Will she be ok?"

A little shakily, Rory took off the surgical gloves he'd pulled on, and dropped them in the bin. He met Amy's eyes and nodded, before reaching out to gently cup River's cheek. "I didn't mean to snap. It's just...both of them." He glanced at the Doctor as he said it, but stroked River's hair. Then he met Amy's eyes, and she could see the fear there, true and naked and helpless. "They're going to get themselves killed one day. We won't always be there to stop them."

Walking around the gurney on which they'd laid River, Amy wrapped her arms around Rory, resting her cheek against his shoulder. "They'll save one another."

Rory sighed, gently rubbing his hand over her back and kissing the top of her head, watching River carefully. "Will they?" Amy stood back to meet his eyes, frowning a little before looking at River and the Doctor. She bit her lip and shrugged.

"All we can do is hope, right? It's not just that we won't be able to stop them." She smiled a little. "We couldn't if we wanted to." Rory nodded, then took her hand.

"Come on, it's best to let them rest."

Amy tried a half-hearted attempt at a real smile. "Is it wise to leave them alone together?"

"Well, it'll be fine if the Doctor knows what's best for him." Rory pretended to be serious. "I was a proper Roman you know."

Together they left the medical bay. When they got to the control room, Amy went straight to the bag of guns River had dragged in. Crouching down, she opened it, pulling out the first thing she saw. Rolling his eyes, Rory jogged over, holding out a hand.

"Careful. You don't know what's in there."

Huffing, Amy stuck her tongue out at him. "River wouldn't have left anything that could hurt us." As she said the words, the silver tube shaped instrument she'd been taking out of the bag suddenly jerked, sending a bolt of bright blue light past Rory and burning a hole in the stairs to the central platform. The TARDIS made a

quick, high pitched sound of distress, and Amy had the decency to look a little contrite. "Sorry" she said to the spaceship, and Rory sat down next to her, raising an eyebrow. "What? How was I supposed to know?"

He shook his head with a smile. "You didn't. That's sort of the point."

"Well the point is stupid." Amy pouted, but made sure to leave the silver tube well enough alone. Very carefully, she and Rory laid out the rest of the weapons. They were all shapes and sizes; some much like the guns they knew, some very much not. All in all, they made a pile of about a dozen things the Doctor would very much not approve of.

"How are we going to carry all of them?" Even Amy sounded a little concerned, and Rory shrugged.

"I'm guessing River has dibs on most." He raised his voice as Amy reached out to pick one up. "But lets wait till she's conscious, and we're less likely to make ourselves the next casualties."

Pouting again, Amy withdrew her hand. "You're such a spoil sport." She helped him up, and Rory grinned, kissing her cheek.

"I know, I know, I'm a terrible person. Not wanting you to mess with alien weaponry. It's so unreasonable."

Amy giggled. "Shut up." Bouncing up to the console, she pulled the monitor around. Though the Doctor and River were better at working the thing than she and Rory; mostly because they actually read Gallifreyan, with a bit of guesswork the Ponds had gotten their heads round the basics. Frowning, Amy tapped at the screen for a minute, crossing her fingers with her left hand until the TARDIS took pity and translated the display into English.

"What I want to know is why we're going in a civil war? We have a time machine, surely we could pick a better spot to land?"

Reading over her shoulder, Rory pointed at a paragraph in the middle of the screen. "Apparently, this guy only got the Oblivion drug toward the end of his life. And then...he blew himself up, along with all the other non-medicinal drugs on the planet." He paused, frowning a little. "It ended the war, but the Oblivion was lost with him and the rest..." Turning around, he leant against the console and folded his arms, raising his eyebrows at Amy. "If this stuff is really going to help us, then why'd he destroy it?"

"Temptation, I guess." Amy's tone was thoughtful, and half her attention was still focused on reading about the War of the Upyri. "I mean; there are dozens of things I'd like to forget..." Her voice trailed away, and Rory took her hand, both of them thinking of Demon's Run, and their baby. "But, if I lost those memories, I'd not be who I am." Amy bit her lip, taking a deep breath and pulling on another smile. "Plus, you know, open to all sorts of suggestion and manipulation. That stuff would be as much a weapon as a medicine."

Rory nodded. "Still a tight spot to hit though, I mean, considering our track record..."

Amy grinned widely this time, without reservation, and punched him lightly in the arm. "Good thing River's flying then. Now come on." Grabbing Rory's arm, she hauled him to his feet. "You need to sleep." Rory opened his mouth to protest, but Amy pressed a finger to his lips, raising her eyebrows and daring him to contradict her. "Don't think I don't know how badly you've been sleeping. You're coming with me, and you're going to have a nice hot bath, and then a good night's rest, even if I have to drug you." She glared, and Rory raised his hands, laughing a little.

"Alright, alright I surrender." Together, both of them wandered back into the depths of the TARDIS, while the ship herself floated in deep space, waiting for them to save her thief. To bring him back to her.


	6. Ghosts and Broken Hearts

When River woke, she was alone. Her leg had nearly healed; as the Doctor was all too fond of saying, you'd find nothing but the best in his TARDIS' medical bay. None of that rubbish 21st century stuff. He and Rory had spent hours discussing the development, applications and properties of the veritable cornucopia of medicine he'd collected in here. In River's opinion, besides the time they spent together in near-death situations, saving lives, planets and the universe, those hours were the foundation of their friendship. Though Amy was the real link, Rory and the Doctor had had to find something to like about one another of their own free will. And as it turned out, that thing was a shared passion for medicine.

As a matter of fact, Rory often came here just to mess around with all the Doctor's different equipment, careful to leave the more valuable things to one side. It amused River no end, though she supposed now she had reason to be grateful for it. At present though, she wasn't surprised by her father's absence. Her mother was still on board, they were still young, and the TARDIS was a big ship. As far as River was concerned, the more time they had together with neither being a duplicate, the better.

What did concern her was the fact that the Doctor was nowhere to be seen. Sighing, River lifted herself into a sitting position, pausing as a wave of dizziness washed over. She made a mental note to tell Rory to give her the Time Lord medication next time. Though she was human enough for regular painkillers to cause no serious damage, they certainly didn't agree with her. Massaging her temples for a moment, River took a few deep breaths, letting the nausea pass. Then she stood, carefully putting weight on her injured leg. It ached a little, but more like a deep bruise than a bullet wound.

She was more than capable of hobbling on it, at least, and that was all she needed right now. Gently tapping on the wall, to ask the TARDIS for a little light, River smiled as a path lit up ahead of her. "Thank you." She whispered to the time machine. Then she set off after the Doctor.

It was one of her longer forays into the TARDIS. She'd spent hours exploring here, playing in all the TARDIS' different rooms and making notes in her diary. But these were the Doctor's footsteps, not hers, and they went far deeper into the heart of the ship than River would normally dare to go. As she walked, the corridors became more and more regular. On her outer limits, the TARDIS' halls were patchwork and zany, mixing lurid green and orange stripes with the occasional hedge and space age steel. Here, it was simply the mahogany paneling the TARDIS liked to use along the corridors they used most often. There were even paintings here and there, and small, soft lights ensconced in little alcoves.

River smiled a little, feeling the heart of the TARDIS nearby, warm and loving. The ship was still a little worried for her thief, but she trusted River to make things better. River reached out with the telepathic equivalent of a pat on the back, a little alarmed by just how concerned the TARDIS was on closer look. The way that had been lit for her ended outside a plain looking door. If anything, it was at odds with the rest; grey steel, undecorated, without so much as a handle. Quietly, it slid open of it's own accord, and River stepped into the room before her. A handful of bare light bulbs flickered on, half-illuminating the scene, and with a barely muffled gasp River fell back, leaning into the cold metal of the door which had slid shut behind her.

It was a large room, more like a warehouse, tall and long and wide and sparse. And it was full of ghosts. Not ghosts exactly, that was almost impossible. Translucent, life size holograms, dull eyed and clearly without a living feed, dressed up in Victorian finery and wandering around the room in the bare light. There were men, women, children; some were dancing, some sitting, some looking at one another - as if they had just been in the middle of a conversation, but neither could remember what they were saying. The room went on as far as River could see and farther still, falling into the shadows. To cover the eerie silence, a waltz she didn't recognise was being played from speakers mounted in the walls.

Suddenly, there was a deep rumble, and the room shook. Dust fell from the roof and the walls creaked. The faces of the ghosts flickered, switching to expressions of agony and terror, their clothing becoming armor and blood. River spun, heart pounding, and tried to get back out again. She had no idea why the TARDIS had led her here, but she wanted out, now.

Which was when she heard the Doctor. "River! Where are you going? You're welcome here."

His voice was a little too light, a little too happy in lieu of the past few hours. Bracing herself, River turned. And her heart broke a little. The Doctor was making his way towards her through the crowd, which shifted just a little too slowly to be living. In his arms, he carried the hologram of a small boy with a mop of curly, sandy blonde hair and freckles. Clinging to his leg was a pale girl with long black hair and blue-grey eyes just like her father's. On his other side, twin red-headed boys were chasing two girls, one with frizzy black hair and another blonde. Just behind him, a tall, slender young woman with light brown hair and high cheekbones stood, keeping a careful eye on the children.

The Doctor grinned, shifting his hold on the little boy in his arms, the hologram. "River, meet my son, Samuel." One hand still holding Samuel, he gestured at the others. "And there's my Meredith, Alexander, Summer, Michael, Imogen and Rowena." As he spoke, he carefully handed Samuel over to the slender girl, whom he'd called Rowena. "Keep an eye on him will you darling?"

Wordlessly, the hologram of Rowena nodded. The Doctor smiled as if nothing was wrong, and held out his arm for River. River stayed where she was. She had a feeling she already knew the answer, but she had to ask. "Doctor, who are all these people?"

He cocked his head to the side, the cage of wires on his head looking especially out of place here. "What do you mean? River, darling, they're our people! Come on, I want you to meet them."

Without waiting for an answer, he reached out and took her arm in his. Reluctantly, River went with him. Soon, they were immersed in a sea of long-dead Time Lords and Ladies. The Doctor was gabbling away, pointing out important people and sending others little waves. Biting her lip, River turned to him, putting both her hands on either side of his face.

Immediately he fell silent, his gaze meeting hers in a manner of playful excitement. Around them, the holograms made no sound as they walked around the room, tracing and re-tracing the footsteps they never took in life.

"Doctor, it's not real. I'm sorry." She whispered it fervently, gently rubbing her thumbs over his cheeks. "I'm sorry, but you have to wake up."

The Doctor frowned, shaking his head and turning away from her, his eyes searching the room and resting on his children. "Alex! Leave Merry alone now. And you, Michael. Stop pulling Summer's hair." The people over whom he was shouting made no reaction. Neither did the children; they just stopped moving altogether for a moment, before resuming exactly what they had been doing before.

The room rumbled again, and the holograms flickered. River glanced up in slight fear. "What is that?" Shrugging, the Doctor waved a dismissive hand.

"This TARDIS doesn't seem to like the guests. I probably should have listened to the engineers, these type 40's get awfully spirited." He leaned in close, pulling a face. "It ought to be a little embarrassing." Then he grinned and winked. "But you know me. I like to be the disreputable Gallifreyan. Rassilon knows there are too few of us."

River couldn't help the pity that rose in her, though she was aware the Doctor she knew would resent it. He'd never liked to be pitied. He didn't feel he deserved it. Gently, she took his arm in hers. "Well, speaking of disreputable, I'd love to meet the Corsair."

The Doctor beamed, and led her over to a tall, muscular woman with a tattoo of ourobouros. River spent the rest of the evening being introduced to the dead Time Lords. Most barely reacted. Some smiled, even shook her hand. River pretended that it was real, letting the Doctor lose himself in his dream. She played with his children; committing to memory their beautiful faces. She smiled at the Doctor's dead wife. They danced together through the crowd, and River learnt every name, quietly filing them away. And when the Doctor, in spite of his huge smile and occasional laughter; the jokes he made and pretended to respond to, began to cry silently, she pretended not to notice that either. Instead, she very gently kissed the tears away, and held him close as they waltzed through the crowd. And her heart broke a little further.

Eventually, she managed to get him away from the room, on the pretext of being tired herself, not such a lie. River watched the Doctor ask Rowena to take the others home, watched him hug his mother and kiss his wife. And then she led him away. After a while, she found his room, listening to him ramble away as they went about the evening he thought they'd had, about the food they hadn't eaten, and the news he hadn't heard, and the music that hadn't played. River nodded, and smiled, and made the occasional comment, and he beamed right back at her.

Then she helped him into bed, getting in beside him. Very carefully, she wrapped her arms around him, curling into his side. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and sighed, smiling up at the stars on his ceiling. "I'm glad you met them."

River let out a deep breath, burrowing her face into the crook of his neck and staring at the dazzling colors of a supernova. "So am I." Silently, she thought of the children, and the men and women, and the young, unreserved delight the Doctor had worn so plainly. She felt his breathing even out, falling into soft, deep breaths, and she wrapped her arms around him a little tighter. Then she cried herself to sleep.

But the Doctor was ill, and it wasn't to last. River woke when he pushed himself away from her in a desperate frenzy, fighting his way through his sheets and onto the other side of the bed, clutching his head and rocking on the floor. Then he glanced up with wide eyes and grabbed a pillow, staring at her in pure horror.

"They're coming, get down you idiot! The toclafane, they're going to..." He cut himself off, his expression morphing into an even deeper expression of horror and disgust. With a soft sob, he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. Then he began to shake, screaming. He flinched and shuddered convulsively as if being stung by dozens of bees. After a few moments the shaking stopped, and he collapsed. River, bolt upright in bed, uneasily rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to shake off the faint fear of the spectacle. Instead, she rested her palm on the TARDIS blue wall of the Doctor's bedroom, and asked her to get Rory.

When the Doctor woke again, he stared at her as if he didn't know who she was. Instead, he glanced up at the ceiling, both hands clutching his stomach, beginning to mutter away to himself once more. "So hungry. So so hungry. Where did mother go? When are the girls coming? Not enough to eat. Are we going to die?" The Doctor's head fell back down, and then lifted again when Rory came running into the room. Blindly, he met Rory's eyes. "We're lost now. All of us." Then he shuddered, curling around his gut and moaning.

Deciding to leave the unmade bed and his daughter for later, Rory walked quickly around to the Doctor, waiting for him to fall still before gently injecting him with a sedative. "That should keep him quiet for an hour or two, at least." He said it half to himself and half to River, then he turned and raised his eyebrows at his daughter. "And what, exactly, are you doing out of the medical bay without my permission? In the Doctor's room? In his bed?"

River shrugged, grinning and running a hand through her messy hair. "I felt like stretching my legs?"

* * *

**AN: Thanks to everyone who has added this to their story favorites, alerts, or reviewed. Also, sorry for the mix up with Chapter 4, and thank you for pointing it out. It's fixed now, two more chapters to go from here!**

**LiS**


	7. A little background

Two hours later, they were ready. They'd decided not to strap the Doctor down, just in case, but Rory had given him enough sedative to last another few hours. The last thing they needed was him hurting himself while they were gone. River had fished the TARDIS key from his pocket, tucking it into her jacket and pressing a kiss to the Doctor's forehead.

Then she'd given Rory and Amy the most basic weapons; essentially Earth guns with lasers, and, at Rory's insistence, changed the settings to simply incapacitate, rather than kill. None of them had discussed what River herself was planning to do. Her parents found it best in these situations to turn a blind eye. All three of them had a basic handheld schematic of the main headquarters, as well as pocketsized flares in case they got split up. River had even managed to swipe some handheld force fields, which as she chirpily pointed out, would probably withstand bullets. Rory had taken some issue with the 'probably' of that sentence.

They'd managed to land barely three blocks away from the building they were aiming for, (River was just a little smug about it) in exactly the right time period. The only flaw in what was otherwise a 'masterpiece of spatio-temporal parking' was that they had managed to land in between the two enemy lines, and they would have to exit their time machine into the middle of a firefight.

The TARDIS herself would be fine; River had assured them that she was still well aware of who came in and out of her doors, and that neither the Upyrian mafia nor the rebels had the technology to break in or even move her, not from the outside without a key. River would lead what was essentially going to be a mad charge to the rebel bunker. As it turned out, subtlety was out of the question. Rory thought his wife and daughter were far too happy about the fact.

Standing at the TARDIS doors, River held a gun in one hand, and lifted the palm sized force field disc with the other. Raising her eyebrows at them, she looked from Amy to Rory. "You ready?"

Amy cocked her pistol and grinned, Rory sighed. "Yay, lets go get shot at."

River rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't be such a pessimist. We could survive." Then she pressed the button to engage her force field, a pink screen sprang up around her, and she leapt out of the door. The gunfire was immediate and deafening. Hearts pounding, Amy and Rory followed their daughter's lead.

The street they came onto was clearly of the future, but a recognisable city block none the less. The buildings were metallic, arabesque and scarred with bullets. The rebels were about fifty meters away. The mafia were sixty in the other direction. Bullets whizzed about their ears like angry bees, bouncing and shivering off the force fields, moving too fast to follow. The more traditional bullets were interspersed with the occasional laser blast, and the Ponds immediately ran to the relative shelter of the buildings, sprinting in the direction of the rebels.

As they ran, one of the rebels; a tall, slender man with light blue skin and blood red dreadlocks, jumped over the sandbags and force field defending his end of the street, and made a wild charge for the other end. Rory and Amy broke their pace to turn and watch. He got to ten meters away when an ash grey, four-legged creature leapt over the opposite line and devoured him.

Eyes wide, Amy and Rory grabbed one another's hands, following River's lead.

Twenty-five meters down, there was a small alcove, which looked like the result of a grenade blast. It provided shelter and had just enough space for the three of them. Wildly, River gestured them in. Amy and Rory followed their lead, and River ducked her head out of the gap to shoot down the creature that had finished with the man, and was now sniffing it's way towards them. She dropped it in two shots before tossing the gun and grabbing a new weapon from her belt.

"They eat people!" Rory felt like it was important to point this out. River stared at him incredulously.

"Yes, well done. We're still being shot at." As she spoke, she ducked out again to fire a few warning shots back at the mafia. The rebels had stopped shooting. Amy hoped that was a good thing.

"You didn't think it was worth mentioning?" Rory shouted, taking his turn to duck out and fire off a few rounds. After his two thousands years as the centurion, he wasn't a bad shot, though he didn't have the clinically manufactured accuracy of River.

Rolling her eyes, River re-loaded her second gun. "What would you have done if I had? Brought seasoning?"

Rory opened his mouth to reply, but Amy held up her hands. "Ok, stop! Aren't we trying to get to the rebels?"

"Amy's right." River was immediately serious. "Rory, you get the tail. We make a break for it on my count." Rory nodded, and all three of them got ready to move. River took a deep breath. Now the rebels were no longer firing, the mafia had stopped too. Eerie silence settled on the ravaged street. All three of them tried not to look at the corpses on the ground. River's voice dropped with the silence. "Alright. Three, two, one!"

The second they were out of cover, the mafia began firing again. In seconds, they'd made it to the rebel's barrier. River somersaulted over the six-foot wall in a catlike movement that should not have been humanly possible. Rory dropped his gun and gave Amy a boost before taking a run and jumping at the thing, managing to grab hold of the top and roll himself over as his force field sizzled and dissolved against the other.

In front of them was a small crowd of pale blue humanoids, and the ash grey four- legged creatures. All their guns were pointed at the Ponds. River had both her weapons trained on them in return. Heaving a sigh, realising that his gun was now on the wrong side of the wall, Rory raised his hands in surrender.

"We come in peace?"

"I am well aware." Amy, who had been giving Rory a look, blinked in surprise and turned to the voice. It was deep, and a little weak. As they watched, a white-haired man in a wheelchair rolled out of the crowd, who in turn gave varying signs of respect; some saluted, some bowed their heads, some even knelt. Warily, River holstered her guns.

Bowing her head, but keeping her eyes on the man before her, River raised her eyebrows at the ground. "Grandfather Upyri. We are honored."

The Grandfather shook his head, dislodging a handful of white dreadlocks, and waving a weak hand that Amy distantly noted had six fingers. "It is you who do me honor, friend of the Doctor. I know why you are here." His pale grey eyes narrowed, and he pursed his lips. "Come. I will give it to you."

He made a gesture, and with a hiss of hydraulics, the wheelchair spun and began to head back out of the crowd. Stunned, Amy, Rory and River followed. The soldiers were apparently no less shocked than they, staring at them with wide eyes in varying shades of grey, some with their mouths open. Rory jumped a little on catching sight of a yellow, forked tongue, putting a protective hand on Amy's back. Amy shrugged him off, giving him a small smile.

The ash grey creatures watched them curiously. They were about seven foot tall, and these were dressed in standard green combats. On closer inspection, as they walked through the crowd, Amy and Rory realised that the grey creatures were the women. Up close, they were eerily beautiful, with elongated cat like eyes, delicate features and almost translucent skin. The black fangs curling over their lips ruined the effect a little, but none of them tried for a bite or two, which Rory considered a success in itself.

Once away from the main crowd. Grandfather Upyri tapped a button on the arm of his wheelchair, and a hovercraft materialized out of nowhere. Clamps stretched out from the side, attaching to the chair and lifting it onto the metal platform. At the press of another button, a ladder fell down from the side to the ground.

Amy, River and Rory stayed where they were, eyeing the ship uneasily. Things were just not this simple. Not in their lives.

Grandfather Upyri gave them a smile, which was probably meant to be reassuring. (The effect was somewhat ruined, with the black teeth and the forked tongue.)

"I swear on my life, or what's left of it, that no harm will be done to you."

"Why?" It was River who spoke, and she put a hand on her hip, staring boldly at the old alien as the sound of bullets echoed through the air. "You've never met us. How do we know this isn't a trap?"

Upyri chuckled softly. "Fair. But if I truly did not know you, why should I trap you? It seems wasteful, when I have so little time to spare." His smile fell, and he gazed around himself at the ravaged buildings. Then he tapped his legs, limp and useless in the chair. "Come. This is for the Doctor. I feel you would not my begrudge my wanting to help him."

River paused, and then got on to the steps with a sigh. "Fine. But I'm armed." Upyri smiled complacently and River settled onto the bench right behind him. Amy and Rory followed. Almost before they'd sat down, the hovercraft took off. A faint pink shield rose up around the vehicle in a bubble, and it accelerated, heading towards the Fortress River and Rory had examined in the TARDIS.

Leaning forward and pulling both women closer, Rory whispered urgently under the sound of the engine. "Are we sure this is a good idea? We still don't know why he's helping us."

Laughing, Upyri swerved between buildings, still heading for his headquarters. "One of the gifts of my people, little human, is excellent hearing. But your concern is still fair. You are looking for Oblivion, my most infamous medicine." The smile fell from Upyri's face and his voice, and the vehicle slowed to halt, landing gently on the roof of his building. He turned to them, lips pursed once more, brow furrowed into dozens of wrinkles. "You need it, because the Doctor has encountered the Conscience Mirrors. And now he must forget." Upyri sighed, letting the hovercraft drop his wheelchair gently onto the roof and spinning to face them. "And the reason the Doctor was trapped in the first place, was me."

* * *

Grandfather Upyri had not always been a Grandfather. Nor had he always been a rebel. He started his life in Delirium as a drug mule, and worked his way up the ranks to a researcher. He loved the stars, and so he fought his way tooth and nail to a position where he could see them.

He and the rest of the crew had been tasked with the discovery of newer, better chemicals which could be turned into drugs; both medicinal and for leisure. They discovered dozens, and Upyri soon made a name for himself as the man with the golden touch. Every hunch he had yielded a reward, and this only served to send him further up the ranks. By the time he met the Doctor, he was a Captain.

They'd been flying through the same patch of sky, though Upyri didn't know it at the time, when he'd picked up a strange signal from a nearby moon. It was uninhabited, inhospitable to any known form of life. No atmosphere, just rock and stardust. But they were picking up a signal. On further investigation, it turned out there was some sort of building, wrapping around the moon as if in a coat of diamonds. Unable to resist his own curiosity, Upyri had given the order for a landing.

They had planned to rest on the roof, and possibly break through the shell, if possible. But the second their craft touched the surface, it sank right through; as if the metal they were looking at was quicksand. They found themselves in a labyrinth of mirrors, with no apparent way out. It was impossible to go back the way they had come, or even to force their way out. So Upyri split his crew up into teams, with instructions to reconnaissance, and meet back at the ship in two hours. He never saw the other six, or his ship, again.

Slowly, they began to be haunted. Within an hour, Upyri had lost the other two men on his team, both running off in a screaming daze. Upyri himself had not yet killed anyone, and simply wandered, around and around, trying to find a way out. He saw body upon body upon body, all in different states of decay. Some human, some not. And as he walked, he heard the screams of his crew. Sometime distant, sometimes close. But never where he could see them. As time passed, their screams became more and more maddened, dissolved into weeping and shouting and laughing. Upyri would curl up against the endless mirrors and press his hands to his ears, trying to ignore his hunger.

He began to go a little mad himself, and it was the hunger, more than anything, that kept him sane. Without an illusion to distract him, Upyri was acutely aware of his steady but inevitable starvation, until eventually, he collapsed.

When he woke, it was to the old eyes of young man, and the taste of celery in his mouth. The Doctor smiled at him, and explained that he had come regarding the automatic distress call the ship had sent off after being abandoned for two days. His own ship had disappeared, like theirs, and he'd stumbled across Upyri. The labyrinth didn't work at first, the Doctor had some telepathy, and he used it to resist. But both he and Upyri knew it wouldn't be long. As Upyri had discovered, there was no way to simply walk out of that place; nor could either access their ship.

So the Doctor suggested a vortex manipulator; not complex enough to manipulate time, but just enough for one quick hop through space. Off the moon, and onto the planet below. Upyri had suggested a simple distress call, but the Doctor had shaken his head; the Mirrors would have gotten to him by then, and Upyri would have starved, he needed medical treatment. It was at this point that the Doctor told Upyri that he must not die, that he was going to do great things for Delirium, and for all the known races. Upyri, weak and frightened and desperate, hadn't believed a word he said. The Doctor just smiled. He managed to construct a vortex manipulator from what was in his pockets. It was an act of impromptu genius the likes of which Upyri had never and would never see again.

As he worked, the Doctor explained that this would only work once. The Mirrors were semi-sentient; they would learn the nature of the breach and take action to prevent another of a similar sort. Upyri watched, unable to help, and saw the Doctor begin to wince when he thought Upyri wasn't looking. To flinch, and look over his shoulder. The Mirrors were taking effect.

When the Vortex Manipulator was ready, The Doctor strapped it on to Upyri's wrist, and then, with nothing but a small, sad smile, pressed a button on his sonic screwdriver, and sent Upyri away. Stranding himself.

Upyri had landed on the nearby planet, Bacchus, in the middle of a street, stunned and half starved but still alive. He was taken to hospital and as soon as he was able, he sent for his associates on Delirium, informing them that his crew and ship were lost and requesting assistance.

He monitored the moon on which the Doctor had been stranded, a moon, he learnt, named Conscience. He tried to go back, more than once, but was barred from doing so by the rest of the Upyri. It was not worth the risk, they said. They needed him alive, with them. But Upyri kept watching. For two years, nothing happened. And then a small blue box crashed out of the wall of mirrors and dematerialised, just above the moon. Upyri did all he could to find out about The Doctor, the man in the blue box. He found far more than he expected, and as the years passed, spent whole days wondering why a time traveller, a hero, would sacrifice his life and his mind for little more than a glorified drug mule.

Because of the Doctor, Upyri began to stage a reform on Delirium; using his now considerable influence to campaign for free medicine, to be distributed to any planet in need of it. He tried to get rid of the more dangerous substances, the dens of thieves and prostitutes that had sprung up over the planet, to free his fellow people. And by doing so, he started a civil war.

Grandfather Upyri, as he became known, never forgot the Doctor. He could not forget the debt he owed the man, nor could he forgive himself for it. So he searched for a way to pay it back. He found one, in Oblivion; perhaps the only substance in the known universe capable of undoing what had been done. And then he waited.

* * *

**AN: So this is the penultimate chapter. Thanks to those of you who've stuck with me through this.**

**LiS**


	8. Aftermath

As Upyri finished his story, he reached within the folds of his tunic, withdrawing a small metal case on a chain around his neck. Eyes shut, he breathed on it gently and it snapped open to reveal a vial of what looked like ordinary water. With a shaking hand, he held it out to River. Very carefully, she took it, tucking it into her jacket.

Grandfather Upyri let out a deep sigh. "Two milliliters should do it. I'm so sorry."

River's face was calm, and she nodded, once. "I know." She did not forgive him. Upyri shut his eyes, and cautiously, Amy reached out, resting a hand on one of his slight shoulders.

He opened his eyes to look at her, and she gave him a small smile. "It's alright. I doubt the Doctor thinks there's anything to forgive." She stood up again, holding out her hand. Slowly, Upyri took it. "But we forgive you anyway. Alright? And thank you. He really would be lost, otherwise."

Nodding, Upyri shook her hand, and then flicked a switch on his wheelchair, turning it around. "You can take the hovercraft, friends. Best to be away as soon as you can."

Rory frowned, looking after him. "Where are you going?"

The wheelchair stopped, and Upyri leant forwards, turning to face them. "It's over. Time to end this war."

"Which is our cue to leave. Mum, Dad, get in." River herself jumped into the hovercraft as she spoke, turning it on and waiting for Amy and Rory to follow before soaring away from the building.

"When did you learn to fly one of these?"

River laughed at Rory's incredulous question, accelerating even as the force field rose up around them. "I'm a capable girl."

Behind them, there was a thunderous crash and a roar of flame. Amy and Rory turned in time to see the fortress go up in smoke, and both of them leaned into one another, remembering what the TARDIS had told them. Upyri had ended the war, at the cost of his own life. They didn't have time to mourn. Both sides around the TARDIS had ceased fire in the wake of the explosion, and River half crashed, half landed them right outside the TARDIS doors, bundling them into the ship and running up the stairs.

"Everyone in?" She called from the console. Amy and Rory replied in the affirmative, shutting the doors. River shoved the launching lever, and they were thrown into the time vortex.

Within moments, they were in deep space once more, and once there, all three of them went to the medical bay. The Doctor was half wake, staring blindly into space. He was struggling, but he was slower, weaker than before. Rory checked him over using the futuristic instruments lying around the bay, and Amy took the Doctor's hand.

"Is he alright?"

Rory sighed. "I think so. As far I can tell, he's just exhausted."

River withdrew the vial of Oblivion, walking to the Doctor's side and reaching forward to push back his hair. "Not for much longer sweetie." She turned to Rory. "Do you have a syringe?" Rory nodded, finding one and handing it to her. Carefully, River measured out two milliliters from the vial. Then she handed the syringe to Rory, who inserted it into the Doctor's arm while River kept it still.

All of them held their breath as the liquid went in. For almost a minute more, the Doctor continued to struggle. And then, slowly, his expression smoothed, his breathing evened out, and he fell into a deep sleep. Quickly, Rory checked him over once more, before nodding at Amy and River. "He's alright." Carefully, he removed the electrodes and wires still wrapped around the Doctor's head and threw them into the bin. Both women smiled, and River grabbed a seat, settling down opposite Amy and gently taking the Doctor's other hand.

Rory got a chair for himself, sitting next to River, while Amy sat on the counter next to the bed. Together, quietly, they waited for the Doctor to wake up.

Three hours later, he did, frowning and rubbing his head. As he took stock of his surroundings, he noticed the three of them. His eyebrows shot up, and he gave them a weak smile. "Hello. What are you doing here?"

"You did something stupid." Amy was trying to sound cross, but the enormous smile on her face and her hand in the Doctor's told a different story.

Rory did better, chipping in from behind River. "Insanely irresponsible."

"Recklessly self-sacrificing and downright foolish." River finished and the Doctor blinked, still smiling a little, clearly just happy to see them. He glanced at River, who had released his hand in order to reprimand him. Then he looked to Amy, pouting a bit.

"So no hugs then?"

All three of them laughed, and wordlessly wrapped their arms around him. A little stunned, the Doctor hugged them back as best he could. "Ok. Group hugs. That's...nice. Is that a thing now? Rory?"

From behind River, Rory laughed a little, and Amy mussed the Doctor's hair. River just held him tight. "Only on special occasions."

After a moment more, they all let go, and as the Doctor sat up, he raised his eyebrows at them. "Was it that bad?"

Amy shook her head, putting an arm around him. "You have no idea, raggedy man."

With one arm, he hugged her back, looking around the medical bay; catching sight of the net of wires in the bin and glancing at River with a slight, suspicious frown. "Any particular reason I can't remember any of it?"

"It was necessary." River's voice was smooth and calm, and Amy and Rory exchanged uneasy glances. The Doctor laughed softly.

"Don't tell me. Spoilers?"

River beamed, and leaned forward to press a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. "Exactly." Behind them, Rory coughed, gesturing awkwardly at Amy.

"Can you, uh, leave the kissing till your parents are out of the room?"

The Doctor grinned, glancing at the last centurion and his wife, the girl who waited. River winked. "Only if it makes you uncomfortable." Rolling his eyes, Rory left, and River laughed, leaning into the Doctor. Gently, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss into her mess of blonde curls.

"Did I give you a scare?" River sighed, reaching up to take his hand.

"You know me dear, I'm not scared of anything." She paused, and the Doctor was silent, waiting for her to finish. River bit her lip, shutting her eyes and breathing in the scent of him. "But that was closer than I'd like to come again." The Doctor wondered why, perfectly aware she wouldn't tell him.

Instead of asking, he gently turned her face to his and met her gaze, leaning in to rest his forehead against hers. "Then I'm sorry." River shut her eyes.

"Don't be. For me, just this once. Don't be sorry." The Doctor frowned, troubled by the sadness in her voice. But he said nothing. Instead, he kissed the end of her nose, and then her lips, holding her close.

"Alright."


	9. Epilogue

Of course, it was not quite that easy. Although the Doctor lost the memory of what had happened, it soon became clear that the emotions the trauma had brought to the surface had not yet faded.

More than once, River found the Doctor outside the grey door to the room of ghosts, frowning as tears fell down his face. The holograms were gone now, and he did not, apparently, remember that they had been there, not consciously at least. Every time, he let her lead him away. But he kept coming back.

Twice, Amy found the Doctor with Melody's baby blanket. She'd kept it after Demon's Run, and now it went with her wherever she went; all that was left of the child she'd had. The first time, she'd found him in her room, with the blanket pressed to his face, breathing it in silently. He'd started when she'd come in, guiltily putting it down, unwilling to explain. But Amy remembered Samuel, Meredith and Summer, Alexander, Michael, Imogen and Rowena. She said nothing, but she sat down next to the Doctor, looping her arm through his, and running her thumb over the soft material. He'd frowned at her, and opened his mouth, as if to ask...But after a moment, he thought better of it, and left. Amy went to follow him and stopped herself, instead finding River and folding her into a hug, clutching the blanket with her free hand.

Once, on the adventure following the Doctor's madness, Rory knocked out a foreign dignitary. They were three hundred years into Earth's future, and the dignitary had begun to lecture the Doctor, accusing him of being a war criminal and a murderer. He told the Doctor he was a monster. At the words, the Doctor, who had been doing something clever with his sonic screwdriver, stopped as if he'd been slapped in the face. And Rory walked up to the pompous man in uniform and punched him.

The Doctor never asked what had happened to him, and if he did investigate, he was subtle about it. River never spoke about it. Amy had nightmares, but eventually they faded. She told Rory about the Doctor's children, and he told her about the war. Neither of them looked at the Doctor in the same way again.

All three simply learned to love him more. River was ever more fierce in her defense of the Doctor, and her chastisement of his self-sacrificing nature. Amy grew even closer to her raggedy man, and wordlessly they overcame the loss of Melody that had jammed its way between them. Rory went out of his way to spend time with the Doctor, to get to know him better.

The Doctor himself continued to be mad, in his own brave, brilliant way. And if there was a little sadness behind his eyes, the occasional falter in his step, a tear when he thought no one could see; they said nothing about it.

_'I hold it true, whate'er befall;_

_I feel it, when I sorrow most;_

_'Tis better to have loved and lost_

_Than never to have loved at all.'_

_~Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam: XXVII_


End file.
